Till now, Bowen had refused to take the third phase of the tax cuts seriously because they are so remote as to be pure fiction - they're proposed to kick in from 2024-25. On recent form, that would be four prime ministers hence.

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But Bowen was suddenly quite troubled about it: "Now of course tax rates are not set on a gender basis. But of course we should be having regard to the impact of tax cuts on the economy and on women, for whom the gender pay gap is already very significant."

Treasurer Scott Morrison dismissed this line of logic as "nonsense". But on the same day introduced some political posturing of his own. The quickening of economic growth in the March quarter national accounts was, apparently, ute-driven.

Lauding an unexpectedly fast economic growth of 3.1 per cent for the 12 months to the end of March, Morrison gave notice that "you are going to hear me say utes a few times today".

The ute is an economic indicator, according to Scott Morrison.Credit:Erin Jonasson

And on Friday he was he posing in front of one at a campaign stop for the byelection in the Queensland seat of Longman. "Behind us," Morrison announced to reporters, in case they hadn't noticed, "is the humble ute.

"This one looks like it's had quite a bit of work done on it, out on the road and around here. But every time you see a ute out there on the streets, whether it's here in Longman or anywhere else, with a mobile phone or a little logo on the side, you know, there's another small business out there making Australia even stronger, and making our economy stronger."

This is a new emphasis for Morrison but an old metaphor for economic growth. Yes, this one has had quite a bit of work done on it, Treasurer. Your predecessor Joe Hockey used it as a symbol for economic vitality, and so did Labor's Wayne Swan before him going back to 2011.

On one level, this is all pretty harmless junk politics. It's junk because it's just emotive rhetoric and emblems, bereft of substance.

The pay gap between men and women stands at 15 per cent in favour of men.Credit:Michele Mossop

Treasury deputy secretary Maryanne Mrakovcic told a Senate inquiry this week that her department did not do gender analysis of tax cuts “because we see the tax system as gender neutral".

"A man earning the same amount as a woman, pays the same amount of tax as a woman,” she said in a statement of the obvious. Men would get a bigger tax cut overall than women because they earn more. Questions of inequality, said Mrakovcic, "go to a much broader set of factors than the tax system".

Indeed, there is a real gender pay gap. It averages 15 per cent in favour of men. But Labor wasn't talking about fixing it. It was just simpering, trying to create a sympathetic vibe.

Another way of stating Labor's position would be to say: "We oppose giving women $11 billion in tax cuts. Why? Because men would get $30 billion," based on the Parliamentary Budget Office numbers. In other words, no one benefits, but everyone can get angry with everyone else in the meantime.

Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen tried a new tack on the income tax cuts battle.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Morrison's ute-driven economy is just another bit of superficial attention-seeking. Sales of utes do seem to be strong, says independent economist Saul Eslake, "but I would also note that of the 3.1 percentage points of growth, 1.2 percentage points came from resource exports and delivering iron ore to China and Japan doesn't call for a lot of utes".

"Similarly, 1.6 percentage points was attributable to population growth and migrants aren't typically arriving by ute and babies aren't typically delivered in utes."

So Labor may as well stand in one corner screaming "women" and the Coalition in the opposite corner screaming "utes" like competing sideshow spruikers, mindless appeals for the short-term attention span of the unthinking.

On a partisan breakdown, it suggests that Labor, which already has a small, persistent advantage among women voters, thinks it can find advantage by moving further to the left. In other words, to compete with the Greens for votes.

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And it suggests that Morrison, by invoking tradespeople in utes, is trying to solidify the Coalition appeal to the voters who once supported Labor in the days before Hawke and Keating deregulated the economy and who increasingly identify with the Liberals as the party of enterprise.

On the level of the identity politics vogue, it's about Labor fuelling female resentment of men and the Coalition subtly asserting the superiority of the blokeish tradie truck as the driving force of economic virility. The biggest source of new jobs is actually the healthcare industry, suggesting a different gendering altogether. But gender politics doesn't have much regard for reality.

Do these sorts of exercises in identity politics work for the political parties? "Yes," says veteran Labor campaigner Bruce Hawker, "so long as their messaging is direct and unfiltered. So through social media, yes, but if directed to the traditional media, not so much.

"Because for every person saying 'yes, I like that', you have someone else of the other gender saying 'I don't like that very much'." Labor followed through on its "tax cuts are unfair for women" gambit by reviving its campaign to remove GST on tampons.

Identity politics is raging in the US.Credit:AP

You can see the mainstream parties' temptation to play this game. Remember that these are people restlessly seeking new and exciting ways of finding even the tiniest advantage to deploy against their rivals.

Identity politics looks thrilling because it's raging in the US, because it is an easy way of tapping white-hot spews of social media spleen, because the political advisory class thinks this can be mobilised for campaigning and because it offers instant and emphatic gratification for anyone who knows the right buttons to press.

But the main parties have to ask themselves a very basic question. Are they trying to win majorities? If so, are they still functioning as catch-all parties seeking mass support? If they are, they need to concentrate on inspiring support rather than fomenting hatred.

Or have they given up on winning the confidence of broad sections of the people? Demonisation is easier than inspiration, just as wrecking is easier than building. And social media, more accurately described as anti-social media, is the perfect tool for fragmenting a society and setting one sub-group against another in pursuit of traction.

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In truth, identity politics is best suited to fringe parties, protest parties, and insurgent movements. When the political right plays identity politics, it often takes the form of xenophobia, race-baiting and Muslim-hating. The left's version usually targets the white, male, Anglo-Saxon, heterosexual, Christian.

Whether played by the left or the right, it's destructive, about asserting one group's rights above another. It's not about equality. It's about an armed Balkanisation of the electorate.

The main parties have to remember that Australia has compulsory voting, so, unlike the US, turn-out is guaranteed. If they want to govern, they need to be parties of mass appeal with primary votes of 40 per cent or better.

There's still scope for appeals to the different genders. "You do see issues that are much more attractive to women than to men, for instance," says Hawker. "You ask men what issues are most important and they're more likely to say jobs, the economy, maybe defence, and women are more likely to say healthcare and education.

"So you can calibrate your political message to the two agendas rather than setting them up against each other, saying 'you will be a loser and the other gender will be a winner'."

And as for the national interest, it's pretty easy to see where identity politics leads. The US liberal academic Mark Lilla damned the Democratic Party for playing into the hands of Donald Trump in the 2016 election: "As soon as you cast an issue exclusively in terms of identity you invite your adversary to do the same. Those who play one race card should be prepared to be trumped by another, as we saw subtly and not so subtly in the 2016 presidential election."

If you play identity politics, you may end up with an identity you really didn't want. How burlesque that in the same week the federal government convened a group of eminent Australians to agree on a unifying national brand to market Australian products abroad, our main political parties are flirting with ways to set one group of Australians against another.

Peter Hartcher is the political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. He is a Gold Walkley award winner, a former foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Washington, and a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.